Newsletter-first launches are back for B2B SaaS
A few years ago, newsletters felt like vanity projects. Today every B2B SaaS launch I advise starts with an editorial plan, not a product tour. Why? Paid channels are jittery, webinars are saturated, and the only asset buyers welcome weekly is a smart inbox note that respects their time.
The playbook looks like this: two months before GA, spin up a lightweight Substack or ConvertKit list around the customer problem, not the product name. Ship one essay per week. The essay formula never changes—one anecdote from the field, one chart or teardown, one tactical template. Close with a single CTA that invites readers to reply. Those replies become your launch copy, objection list, and onboarding snippets.
During launch month, shift the cadence to twice a week and introduce “lab notes.” These are shorter updates that show scrappy progress: screenshots from QA, support macros, playlist of the week. They remind readers there are humans behind the roadmap.
Post-launch, keep the newsletter alive by letting customer voices take over. Rotate in guest columns from beta testers or community members, pay them for their time, and watch your open rates stay north of 45 percent. When sales needs a warm list, they now have thousands of readers who’ve been nodding along for months.
Newsletters aren’t retro—they’re the last channel buyers control. If you treat the format like a weekly conversation instead of a funnel, your launch has a spine that no algorithm tweak can snap.
